How To Choose The Right Real Estate CRM

"Coaching changed my business and my life."

Choosing a real estate CRM can be difficult. Finding the best CRM for your real estate business can transform you into a top producer! Follow along as real estate coach and trainer, Travis Robertson helps YOU figure out which real estate CRM is right for you and your real estate business! Ramp up your real estate marketing today!

How to Choose the Right Real Estate CRM

Now that you know why it is important to have a CRM, it’s time to choose one. As someone who has trained tens of thousands of real estate agents, Travis Robertson gets asked one question far more often than any others. “Which CRM platform or which database platform should I choose for my business?” For a question that gets asked so often, the answer is pretty simple: pick whichever one you’re going to use. Your ability to make money off of your database depends on your interest and actual ability to use it correctly. If you don’t like logging into your database platform, or you don’t like the way it looks, you don’t like the way it feels or it just doesn’t feel like it works the way you think, you’re not going to use it.

Don’t follow the crowd.

Unfortunately the way most people choose a database platform is they look around to see what everybody else is using. However, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what everybody else is using. It only matters what you like and what you’re going to use day in and day out to run your business. If you don’t find that platform that fits you and your business, it doesn’t matter how popular or inexpensive the other platform is, it’s not going to bring value to you and your business.

Take a step back.

The first thing you need to do is step back from all of the different options that are out there. Why? Because there’s over a thousand different database platforms you could choose from to run your business. Unfortunately, if you sit there trying to analyze every single platform, you’re going to get bogged down in the weeds. It is very simple to start narrowing down which group you need to be focused on.

In order to do this, start with your needs. What is it that you need to solve?What problems or challenges or features or benefits do you need to get from whatever database platform you choose? Grab a sheet of paper or open up a document on your computer, iPhone or iPad. Sit down and brainstorm, whether by yourself or with your team this idea: what is it that we need this database platform to do? List out as many as you can and try while you’re doing this not to think of any specific platform.

The reason for this is simple. You start to think about the database platform that you’re kind of leaning towards or kind of thinking about. When you do that you start tailoring your needs or your wants or your desires towards the platform that you’re already leaning towards. If you do that, you’re going to skew your results and make it more challenging and more difficult for you to land on the right solution.

Discover your needs.

Another common questions always pops up during this process. “Well how should I organize my needs? What is it that I should put down?” Here’s a great example: it doesn’t have to be too specific; sometimes it can be, sometimes it doesn’t need to be.

If you’re the type of person that needs something simple and easy to use, put that down; I need it to be simple. I need it to be brainless.

I need it to remind me and tell me what it is that I need to do on a regular consistent basis. I don’t want to have to think about it. I don’t have to try and put all this information in there. I want the system that’s going to be able to remind me exactly what I need to do.

Or maybe you want something that is familiar or that reminds you of other software applications that you view so that when you log in it feels like you’re home. It feels like something that you’ve used before so there’s a comfort and familiarity with it.

There’s also a time to get very specific, like if you need the ability to create automated campaigns or want to be able to segment your list into multiple categories and have people be allowed in multiple categories.

Find the right solution.

There’s a lot of different ways to write your needs down. Once you have that list, it’s now time to go out and look at solutions based off the needs and the wants that you’ve written down. The next question is this: should I choose a real estate specific CRM platform or should I choose something that’s not real estate specifically? Or does it even matter? It’s a great question that comes up often. Here’s the thing: if you’re going to use the platform and it’s going to meet all of the needs that you to put down, it doesn’t matter if it’s a real estate specific platform or if it’s a non-real estate specific platform. It doesn’t matter. It just matters that it meets the needs and the wants that you have and that you’re going to use it.

Recommended Products

We categorize the platforms in two ways and within each of those categories, we generally recommend one of two different platforms.

1.) Old-school, traditional database platforms

We recommend a program called Ixact contact. You can register for a free 60 day trial HERE.

2.) New school, more modern platforms

For a more new modern style, we recommend a program called Contactually. You can find a link to it HERE.

We have clients that use Ixact and we have clients that use Contactually. At the end of the day, we have clients that don’t use either of them. It ultimately comes down to picking the platform that’s right for you and right for your needs.

Nice article! My suggesttion is that anybody looking for a Real Estate CRM is to look at SoftwareSuggest – they have a program that does everything that you require as a agents – it chips away at each PC and device, it is on the web, it works with each site, so you can total your leads across the board put which makes it simple to market to your leads.